A French opera singer named Madame Thible was the first...

December 9, 1985|By L.M. Boyd

A French opera singer named Madame Thible was the first woman to fly in a balloon. At Lyon, France, this, in 1784. On the ground below, the king of Sweden, who'd made the trip for history's sake, watched. As the balloon rose, according to the record, she sang an operatic aria. And the king waved and yelled something like ''Higher! Higher!''

Fail ye not to tell the Christmas shoppers in your family that the passion for buying unnecessary things is called oniomania.

The high-born Karl Marx got close to the proletariat at least once. His maid had his illegitimate son.

Q. Why is that renowned yachting trophy, now in Australia, called the America's Cup?

A. First winner on Aug. 22, 1851, was the America, defeating the British yacht Aurora.

Q. In Rocky Mountain country, a warm westerly wind is called a chinook. Why?

A. Because it always seemed to come from near the mouth of the Columbia River where the Chinook Indians camped.

History records that the bachelor Beethoven could add, but not subtract nor divide. And he certainly didn't multiply. Trouble with getting cute is you clutter up the facts: Beethoven couldn't do arithmetic.

''I said it and I'm glad'' is conversational punctuation. Nearly everybody has tossed out that line at one time or another. It originated with a comedienne of yesteryear named Cass Daley. Ask your granddad if he recalls.

The Russian writer Ivan Turgenev coined the word nihilist. You hear it a lot lately in stories about terrorists. The big book at hand says a nihilist thinks society, as is, deserves destruction for destruction's sake. To justify destruction, a nihilist doesn't need a plan for improvement.

Writes a client: ''Anybody who'd keep a record of the fact that Elvis Presley's Army serial number was 53310761 has got to be an idiot.''